With a healthy Rs 68,000 crore order-book, the construction major Larsen & Toubro (L&T) today said it expects to maintain 30 per cent growth rate in sales in the next fiscal despite slowdown in the economy.
"There will be sale growth of 30 per cent during 2008-09. We are confident that we will be able to maintain that for the next fiscal. That is our hope," L&T whole-time Director and President (Machinery and Industrial Products) J P Nayak told reporters on the sidelines of a CII conference.
As on January-end, L&T is sitting on a hefty order-book for projects to be executed over the next two years.
However, he said a lot will depend on the orders coming in the next few months. He also noted that overall the company has not been affected by the slowdown.
"About 75 per cent of our business is project-based which has not seen a slowdown as of now. Our order backlog is for over two years so in our case there is no slowdown as such as you can see in the first nine months, our sales have grown by 40 per cent over the last year," he said.
Nayak said the firm's manufacturing components business has witnessed some slowdown. He added slowdown may impact future order-booking, but it all depends on how economic situation unfolds.
L&T's sales for the quarter ended December 31, rose by 35 per cent to Rs 8,700 crore over the year-ago period.